The present invention relates to a solid ink for use in a hot-melt ink jet printer.
Solid ink for use in hot-melt ink jet printers has been a solid mixture of wax and a pigment or dye. In printing operation, the solid ink is melted with heat so that it is fluidized and can be ejected as an ink jet.
When the hot-melt ink jet printer is to be supplied with solid ink, a cartridge of solid ink contained in a container or a bare solid ink body is put into the ink jet printer. The cartridge of solid ink is disadvantageous and finds less usage in actual applications for the following reasons: The cartridge of solid ink is relatively expensive because of the container used. In addition, the ink jet printer is required to have a complex mechanism for heating the solid ink in the cartridge into a fluidized state and a complex mechanism for detecting the remainder of the solid ink.
In view of the above shortcomings of the cartridge-type solid ink, more and more solid ink is supplied in the form of bare solid ink bodies because they are inexpensive and does not require complex mechanisms in ink jet printers. One problem with the bare solid ink bodies is, however, that the hands of the user are smeared with the pigment or dye when handling a bare solid ink body for supplying solid ink to an ink jet printer.